Daily Manna · Day 328 · November 24
Following to Know
“Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the LORD: his going forth is prepared as the morning; and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth.”
Hosea 6:3 is one of the most beautiful sentences in the prophets: "Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the LORD: his going forth is prepared as the morning; and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth."
It is worth reading slowly. It speaks of knowing God the way you would speak of walking. Knowing Him is something you keep pressing on in, and the knowing comes to you along the way. Then Hosea reaches for the two most dependable things a farming people knew. The sunrise comes at its fixed time every day, whatever the sky looks like. The rain came in its seasons, early and late, and a farmer could plan a whole year around it.
Now read the next verse, because it shows who has been speaking. God says, "O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? O Judah, what shall I do unto thee? for your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away." God answers their speech with the same weather they used. They said He would come as surely as the morning. He says their love for Him burns off like the morning mist.
That means the lovely words of verse three are a quotation. Verses one to three are the people's own speech of repentance, carefully thought out and well worded. They began, "Come, and let us return unto the LORD." Every word of it was true, and God's reply shows that the wording was never the problem. They had the right beliefs, but their turning back did not last past breakfast.
So the sentence is still true, and it is aimed straight at us. Its whole weight falls on a short phrase that is easy to skip: "follow on." In Hebrew it is a call, "let us press on to know the LORD," and the verb means to pursue. God will come as surely as the morning and the rain. The question this passage asks is whether we will still be following Him a week later. And the promise for those who keep going is given plainly through Jeremiah: "ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart."
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 328 is Aaron's Beard (Psalm 133:1).